


Yes Ma'am

by lurkinglurkerwholurks



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Cat Mom Jason Todd, Healing, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Mental Health Issues, Recovery, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-24 21:27:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22004695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurkinglurkerwholurks/pseuds/lurkinglurkerwholurks
Summary: Jason had shuffled into the bedroom and had just finished pulling his shirt over his head when he paused, arms still trapped in the fabric. A pair of eyes glowed at him from the bed, reflecting the dim light from the hall.
Comments: 52
Kudos: 576





	Yes Ma'am

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dottie_wan_kenobi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi/gifts).



> This fic is made to fulfill dottie_wan_kenobi's BatFam Christmas stocking prompt "Jason taking care of something that’s depending on him and it helping improve his mental health."
> 
> Originally, this was a headcanon that I spawned for Tumblr (Chapter Six of "Stop! It's Fanon Time" https://archiveofourown.org/works/16730115/chapters/39325813) that I'm thrilled to finally turn into an actual fic.

Jason hated it when the needs stacked up. He was used to a chronic level of minor annoyances—a blister on his foot, a drop of sweat running down his back, a stiffness in his shoulder. And needs, when they came one at a time, were a part of existing. Of course there would be times when he was hungry or tired or dirty or thirsty or in need of a bathroom. It was just when the needs began to compound that the light flakes turned into a suffocating avalanche.

Like now.

It had been a horrific night. Jason was soaked right down to the skin, his layers of armor no match for the viciousness of a Gotham thunderstorm. He should have been cold, but the layers that had been meant to keep out the rain and cold had trapped in his body heat as he hiked up the stairs to his safe house. He felt claustrophobic and trapped, pinned beneath sweat and clinging clothing and the cumbersome weight of his belongings. His duffel had broken en route, forcing him to carry his supplies haphazardly, which only added to his rising body temperature. He had fallen in a dumpster so he smelled. He had gotten the bad end of a dustup and had the aching bruises to show for it. He was hungry. He was parched with thirst. He had a headache and a twinging wrist. His eyes were gritty with exhaustion.

This wasn’t even a safe house he liked, just the one that happened to be closest, so Jason felt little guilt and no relief as he stepped through his front door and let everything in his arms fall to the floor. He staggered deeper into the apartment, attempting to peel off his jacket and armor even as he tried to toe off his boots. He almost wasn’t surprised when he tripped, hopping frantically with his arms still partially trapped by the jacket as he twisted and tried to right himself.

Still, it felt good to throw his helmet into the wall. The large, crunching dent in the drywall would be another medal of shame around his neck later, but Jason was only concerned about the here and now. And _now_ causing some damage felt good. But the alarms clanging in his head were only mounting, so he settled for ripping free of his jacket and outer layer of armor and flinging them after his helmet before staggering toward the bedroom.

On a normal crummy day in a normal crummy week, Jason would have spent the entire way to the safe house trying to create an order of operations. It would look something like:

Inside.  
Close door.  
Drop stuff.  
Jacket off.  
Armor off.  
Boots off.  
Socks off.  
Pee.  
Water.  
Food.  
Shower.  
Ice Pack.  
Bed.

There would be more granular steps within that list (getting all his clothes off for the shower, for instance, and finally drying off after), but just being able to prioritize what needed to happen would help shave the edge off his distress.

Jason had no list tonight. He didn’t care, not in any rational way. He was instinct and weariness with little interest in moving beyond that. He wanted to fall on his face and not rise for a hundred years, but the thought of being around for a hundred years, even unconscious, made him feel worse.

It was no surprise that he was less observant than he should have been. Still. He should have noticed the intruder much sooner.

Jason had abandoned his half-formed notion of a shower halfway to the bedroom. He couldn’t remember if this was the safe house currently without reliable hot water and didn’t want to risk it. And what did he care if he collapsed onto the bed still sweaty and stained with the taint of Gotham’s streets? They weren’t his sheets, not really. He just lived here. Let them be soiled. He would move on tomorrow.

He had shuffled into the bedroom and had just finished pulling his shirt over his head when he paused, arms still trapped in the fabric. A pair of eyes glowed at him from the bed, reflecting the dim light from the hall.

Jaosn froze, then reached quickly for the light switch and the baseball bat he knew would be propped beneath it. Even as the light came on, he hefted the bat high, ready to defend himself against whatever horror had breached his sanctuary.

The cat seemed unperturbed. It blinked at him in the sudden influx of light, but only once, just to make the point that the blinking was deliberate.

Jason blinked back, rapidly and without deliberation at all.

He did not own a cat.

Jason stared for a beat longer, various scenarios tap dancing through his brain. Gotham and the life he led made it difficult to discard any offhand. Jason backed away, bat still in hand, and searched his safe house. Only when he could be sure that the cat hadn’t followed someone much larger and more dangerous in did he return to the bedroom to stare at it again.

Jason picked up his phone, hit a button, and waited.

The line clicked.

“Is this your idea of a joke?” Jason demanded before Dick could say hello. “Because I’m not laughing.”

“What?”

“You come get this thing right now, or I’m throwing it out in the street.”

The cat, for its part, seemed unaffected by the threat..

“What thing? What are you talking about?”

“The cat, dickhead,” Jason snarled. “This location is secure. Only one of you idiots could have gotten in and out without tripping the alarms and this reeks of your kind of humor.”

“You got a cat?” Dick made a pleased noise in the back of his throat. It sounded uncomfortably genuine.

“ _No_ , I did not _get_ a _cat_.” Each word cracked like gunfire from the barrel between Jason’s teeth. “One of you morons snuck a cat into my apartment.”

Dick wasn’t doing his part, wasn’t needling Jason like Jason had expected him to. Doubt crept in, but only enough to make Jason hedge his bet.

“If it wasn’t you, then it was the gremlin.”

Despite his name (and attitude, and behavior, and…), the newest Robin wasn’t all bad. Somehow he and Jason had reached a fragile ceasefire that was coming on three months and counting. It helped that the ceasefire wasn’t affected by insults, name-calling, or accusations of diminished intellect. And for all his faults, the kid was surprisingly good with animals. Dumping a street cat in Jason’s safe house without asking was just the kind of thing he’d do.

“Damian’s been with me all night,” Dick was saying, lying through his teeth for the brat. “Whatever you think he’s done, he couldn’t have. Not tonight.”

Jason opened his mouth to argue, to insist that Dick stop lying to him, that whoever was responsible confess and take care of this mess, but he swayed on his feet, rocked by a wave of exhaustion and apathy. Arguing took energy he didn’t have. Caring took focus he couldn’t spare.

“I’m kicking it out,” was all he said and then hung up the phone, Dick’s protests still echoing tinnily in the empty room.

The cat was still watching him. It sat in the center of the bed, its paws folded genteely atop the thin cotton blanket. It was big, bigger than Damian’s Alfred, but Jason couldn’t tell how much of that was bulk and how much was pure fluff. It was covered in thick gray fur, so much that the fur clumped around the cheeks and sprouted in tufts at the ears like some kind of wizard familiar.

Jason looked from the cat to the small bedroom window. The curtains—remains from the previous tenant—were pulled shut, but he could hear the roar of the storm on the other side of the glass. The thin fabric was backlit briefly by a bright flash of lightning, harsh and strobing against his eyelids as he turned his head away.

The cat eyed him placidly, unconcerned by the thought of being tossed out into the maelstrom.

He should. He wanted to.

He couldn’t.

Jason heaved a heavy sigh and tossed his shirt to the floor. It joined other dirty laundry, remnants of long nights past that he shuffled over on his way to the bathroom. He reemerged dry but no less grimy, a chemical ice pack from the first aid kit pressed to his bruised ribs. The alarms were still clanging, but the loudest were dampened by the weariness crashing over him.

He wasn’t old. Jason had to remind himself of that. Some days he still felt painfully young, trapped in the amber of his old life—fifteen, a child, burdened with expectations but still too young for any real form of life. On those days he felt too young for his own body, lost without the time ripped from him.

But most days he felt too old. Old in body, surely, though he was stronger, tougher, than he had ever been before. On nights like tonight when he limped away from a fight, clutching mottled skin and broken bones, he felt too old. On days when he stayed in bed deep into the afternoon for lack of motivation to rise, he felt too old.

Too old to crawl into his father’s room. Too young to live alone in an empty apartment on the bad side of town. Too old to weep into his scratchy sheets. Too young to know how to grip his life and force it into a shape of his choosing.

And when, like tonight, those feelings clashed together like atmospheres building into a towering thunderhead, Jason felt like no one at all.

He curled atop the sheets, the ice pack balanced atop his side. The cat had disappeared at his approach, or so Jason thought until the thin mattress dipped with the silent landing of four paws. He startled, then hissed in pain as his muscles protested. The cat had already circled, twirling tightly in place to settle against his midsection.

Jason stopped breathing.

He didn’t know much about cats. The ferals in his old neighborhood had been skittish things, too wary of the locals to ever let him near. He hadn’t blamed them. He’d been skittish, too. Dogs, at least, made sense, even if he didn’t have much experience with them either. He’d watched dog movies and read dog books. But cats were a mystery. Especially unblinking wizard cats that appeared in locked rooms.

Jason waited for… He wasn’t sure what. The cat curled against him, soft spine pressed against his stomach. It didn’t move but began to vibrate with a low, almost inaudible purr. He wasn’t sure he liked it, but he didn’t think he hated it. He fell asleep as he was deciding, even as he promised himself that tomorrow, tomorrow it would go.

* * *

He was going to take it to the shelter tomorrow.

He was.

Never mind that it had been a week now and every day had begun with the same promise.

Tomorrow it would go.

She, rather. Jason had finally googled how to sex a cat—and had been concerned how the phrase might be misconstrued in his search history—and learned that his unnerving intruder was a lady cat.

He had taken to calling her “ma’am.” As in _Ma’am, off my pillow_ and _Ma’am, that’s my pen cap you’re chewing._ She was an ageless sort of creature, not a kitten by any means, but not old and crotchety either. Jason had never been one for the useless kind of etiquette that Bruce imposed at dinner parties, but he knew the value of respect. For all she was an animal, and an unwelcome one at that, she had never felt like anything less than a ma’am.

He could give her a name, he supposed. But why would he, when she was going to the shelter tomorrow?

“Stop bossing me,” Jason grumbled as he shuffled to the kitchen. He had taken a hard fall the night before and his knee had gone stiff while he slept. The cat circling his ankles didn’t seem to care. She just pressed harder, responding with an authoritative meow.

“Have I let you starve? No. Every day I feed you, so don’t act like you’re wasting away.”

It had been a change, at first unpleasant and then almost comforting in the routine, to be expected to wake at a certain time no matter how patrol had gone the night before. As grumpy as Jason had been to lose control of his own sleep schedule, he had to admit she was polite about it. It was usually the pressure of a steady gaze that woke him, green eyes fixed expectantly on his sleeping face. If staring didn’t work, she would escalate to pawing at his cheek, claws sheathed and touch soft, to gently tap him awake. And if the night had been particularly bad and his sleep deep, Jason would wake to the sandpapery press of a tongue methodically scraping against his forehead.

The cat chirped approvingly as Jason set the bowl of wet food on the floor. Bending had been a bad idea, the motion forcing an unbidden grunt between his lips. Rather than straighten again, Jason sank down on the floor next to the cat, then dug around the cabinet at his back for breakfast. They crunched together quietly, the cat on her mix of wet and dry food, and Jason on his granola bar.

“Good?” he asked.

_Myam myam myam,_ was the only reply. It had better be good. Jason had gone to the grocery store in a low simmering panic and ended up buying the most expensive bag on the shelf. It was now all the little ma’am would eat. She ate better than he did most days. He didn’t mind, but the granola bar—never the most appetizing—tasted even blander now.

“I should pick up some groceries,” Jason muttered.

There was so much he needed to do. He just felt too tired for any of it. If he were on better terms with Bruce, if he had the energy to be on better terms, he might have asked. Jason knew Bruce had his bad days. They were never big or loud, but Bruce had never gone out of his way to hide them, either. He was just quieter on those days, flatter, more likely to be found curled up on the couch in the den or hunched over in the sunroom massaging his temples. Jason had never thought much of them—his mom’s bad days had been a snake of a different bite—and had even, to some extent, welcomed the days, knowing they were just another kind of recovery. Bruce could have told him what to do when he felt like his marrow had been drained and swapped with lead. If only he had the energy to ask.

Jason let himself slump until he lay sprawled on the cracked linoleum, the last bite of granola still caked to the inside of his cheek. He really did need to go grocery shopping. And do laundry. And clean the bathroom. Shower. Clean his guns. Go outside while the sun was up. Fix the leaky kitchen faucet. And take the cat to the shelter. He should do something, anything other than lay on his back and stare up at the yellowed plastic-covered light above him.

He felt bad about it until two paws rested on his chest, with two more to follow.

“Hey, there, girl,” Jason murmured. The cat settled on his chest, her full weight pressing like a weighted blanket. He lifted a hand and began to scratch behind one of her ears.

The cat began to purr, a low, deep vibration that reverberated behind Jason’s ribs. There was nothing funny about it, the purring, but Jason could feel the ends of his mouth begin to curl up. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe because it felt nice to have something living and warm willing to stay with him. Maybe because lying on the floor felt less like a failing when shared with a friend. Whatever the case, he was in no hurry to move, and for once he was okay with that.

“That alright with you?” he mumbled to the cat, who turned her head and butted her forehead against his open palm. Jason’s chest hiccuped with a choked laugh, his first in weeks. “Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

Staredowns with the Bat-Man of Gotham rarely ended well. Jason had participated in a few and observed many more, and they never failed to send a frisson of unease down his spine. They were a clash for dominance, one Bruce rarely lost.

As always, Minnie didn’t seem to care what other people thought.

“So this is the cat.” Bruce’s voice could be described as inflectionless, carefully neutral and scraped clean of incriminating features. Jason was slowly rebuilding his Bruce-specific lexicon, erasing old notes and relabelling each grunt, each nuance, and their corresponding lack.

He still wasn’t as good as he had been, frustrated by the distance of years and bad blood and by the change that distance had wrought on them both. There were old markers whose meanings had changed, hidden pits where solid ground had once rested. But he was getting better. He could register the minute shift that marked curiosity where someone else might assume disinterest.

The cat in question stared up at Bruce, green eyes steady and unblinking.

“Yeah, this is Minnie.”

Minnie didn’t turn her attention from the intruder, but her tail whacked against his side once in acknowledgement of her name.

“Like the mouse?”

Jason shook his head. “It’s short for Minerva.” At Bruce’s blank look, he added, “From Harry Potter. Well. The witch and the myth, I suppose. But mostly the former. She just seemed so… present.”

Bruce regarded the cat, then agreed, “She does.” He paused. “Can I…”

Jason nodded and Bruce stepped forward, knuckles extended for sniffing. Minnie bristled. Bruce stilled.

“She’s, uh, protective.” Jason cleared his throat and spoke around the lump that rose as he smoothed down Minnie’s back. “She doesn’t like other people getting close when I’m laid up.”

To the cat he murmured, “It’s alright. Calm down.”

Jason couldn’t be sure, but he thought Bruce’s face softened slightly. At Jason’s gesture, he extended his hand again and let himself be examined. Once Minnie was finished, she sat back, satisfied, and rested against Jason’s side.

Bruce chose a chair and settled as he said, “She’s beautiful,” but his eyes were on Jason’s face.

As always, Jason felt a small glow of pleasure at the compliment. “Yeah. She’s…” He searched for the right word. “Stately.”

“Regal,” Bruce agreed. “Damian is enamored by her.”

“He keeps bringing her toys,” Jason groused. “I can’t take a step without tripping over some catnip chase thing.”

He complained, but it was kind of sweet. Damian and Dick had crashed his apartment Jason’s second week into thinking he was taking the cat to the shelter. He hadn’t told them where he was, but they’d figured it out and come with armloads of bags filled with every kind of cat supply on the market. It seemed Damian had already requested to take in “Todd’s visitor,” had been denied, and then set his mind to making sure Jason would keep her in the height of luxury.

Jason had scoffed and raged and even threatened them both when they first arrived, but the supplies knocked away his last barrier. After that, it had just gotten easier to keep her. The first time Minnie had thrown up, Damian had been his first call. The kid stopped by every week now, sometimes with one of the others, sometimes by himself, to “monitor Alfred’s cousin,” as he put it. Minnie adored him, but to Jason’s delight, she still seemed to like Jason best.

“How are you feeling?” Bruce asked into the comfortable silence.

“Fine.” It was a quick answer, rote, but Jason meant it, for the most part. Bruce’s gaze cooled a degree, and Jason rolled his eyes. “It’s just mono, Bruce.”

“Dick had mono,” Bruce reminded him, “when he was fifteen. _Just_ doesn’t cover it.”

Dick had already given him the dramatic play-by-play of his own experience and Jason didn’t need it again. Especially since he’d lived it himself over the last week.

“It’s not like I’m by myself,” Jason pointed out. “Between all of you and the Outsiders, there’s always someone here. And I have Minnie.”

He still didn’t stay long at any one safe house. None of them were the Manor, fortified, sanctified. His life required a certain amount of nomadic mobility. Minnie took the changes in stride, helped by her own go bag and duplicate supplies added to each location by an eager Damian. The only real change was now the others knew each location, knew his plans, knew his route. They stopped by, reportedly to check on Minnie, each convinced he would starve her or forget her, but Jason noticed they all stayed far longer than a wellness check demanded.

Bruce was the only one who had kept his distance. While Jason was sure he was fully aware of every change in location and circumstance, they communicated only in the field or during Jason’s stilted visits to the Manor. Despite their sometimes rocky relationship, Jason had a harder and harder time convincing himself that Bruce didn’t care. He meddled too much to not, using the others as surrogates to retrieve information and send supplies, food, and comfort that was too carefully arranged and studiously _not_ from Bruce to be from anyone else.

Finally, Jason had given up and told Bruce, by way of Dick, to come over and hover in person if he was going to be annoying about it. Bruce had shown up the very next day, a covered bowl of Alfred’s soup and two gift bags in hand. The first bag had been a little catnip ball for Minnie, which Bruce had set on the counter for later. The second had been a crocheted throw of material so soft and lush that Jason found himself kneading his fingers into the weave as he lay on the couch. A housewarming present, Bruce had called it, even though house and home meant different things to them than most other people.

Bruce’s attention drifted to the rest of the apartment. This safe house was nothing special—a little bigger than his last place, maybe, with better lighting and larger windows for Minnie to sit in. Jason couldn’t be sure how much Bruce knew and how much he guessed, how much he really saw as he took in the tidied counters and swept floors.

“You look good,” Bruce said at last, and meant it. Jason could feel the hollowness of his own cheeks, the stained shadows under his eyes, the unwashed flattening of his curls. And he smiled. Bruce always saw enough.

“Thanks,” Jason murmured as he rubbed a fingernail under Minerva’s chin. “I had a good caretaker.”

Minnie purred, her eyes two self-satisfied slits of green, and whacked his ribs with her tail.


End file.
